A communication network may include network elements that route data traffic through the communication network. Some network elements may include a distributed architecture, in which data traffic processing may be distributed among several subsystems of a given network element. Some example subsystems of the network elements may include, but are not limited to, line cards, switches, bridges, distributors, and traffic managers. Some network elements may be used in a communication network as a multifunction Ethernet aggregation network element (multifunction network element), which may support one or more functions such as link aggregation, hashing, load balancing, or some combination thereof.
The multifunction network element may include the distributed architecture including one or more line cards and/or a bridge. Each of the line cards may include a modular electronic device that may provide network communication functionality. For example, some line cards may include, among other things, an Ethernet switch that may switch traffic through the network element and into a local area network (LAN). Additionally, the line cards may include modules that may process data such as frames or packets. The packets or frames may contain information such as a source media access control (MAC) address, a destination MAC address, virtual LAN (VLAN) tags, data, or some combination thereof.
The bridge may similarly include a modular electronic device that provides network communication functionality. For example, the bridge may include, among other things, an Ethernet switch, ports, distributor, and modules to process hash rules and addresses. The modules may include processing resources and a memory configured to separate and map data received at ingress ports to output at egress ports. The data may also be flooded or multicast to all egress ports. When data is flooded, packets incoming from one source are transmitted to multiple destinations coupled to the egress ports without duplication. The destinations often share a group address so that only the devices that want the data receive it.
Additionally, communication networks may employ link aggregation. Link aggregation may generally describe the practice of using multiple network cables or ports in parallel to increase link speeds beyond the limits of any single cable or port. An example link aggregation standard is e.g., IEEE 802.1AX-2008. Link aggregation may additionally increase redundancy. In link aggregation, a group or set of ports may be combined and represented as a single logical port to other components of the network system. Various elements of the communication network system may “see” the aggregated ports known as a link aggregation group (LAG) as a single logical communication port in routing tables or databases of network elements external to the LAG.
An example communication network may include an Ethernet LAN. Generally, Ethernet LANs communicate data traffic separated into individual packets called frames that may include a source address, a destination address, and error-checking data. Ethernet LANs are, by design, a best effort system. The term “best effort” may describe systems that do not guarantee the provision of service and rather provide a capacity that is shared without restriction by users. With respect to the Ethernet LAN, best efforts may mean that network providers do not guarantee a defined bandwidth and/or amount of data traffic transfer through the LAN.
However, in some Ethernet LANs, network providers have developed a Connection Oriented Ethernet (COE). In the COE, the network providers may support a guaranteed bandwidth for certain customers, and thereby provide and maintain a quality of service (QoS). More generally, providing and/or maintaining the QoS may involve providing different priority to different customers, applications, data traffic, and/or guarantee performance to different customers, etc.
In non-bridging Ethernet LANs, to carry out the COE and provide the QoS, the network provider may provision data traffic for the certain customer on every network element. With this type of COE, the network elements may drop data traffic not recognized as provisioned by the network provider. In contrast, bridging Ethernet LANs do not require the network provider to provision each network element. Instead, the network element may learn locations of customers over time. The learning of the locations may be based on multicasting data traffic and receiving responses. However, most bridging Ethernet LANS do not provide the COE, which in turn fails to provide a QoS for customers.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one example technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.